Decisions Made In The Afterglow
by The Wind in the Pillows
Summary: Why did Mike Chang join Glee? Why did he choose Glee over Football? Well there's a reason why a guy does what he does, most of the time it's a girl. Mike Chang is no exception, he did what he did for a girl, more a woman really, a woman named Emma.


Wow this turned out longer than I expected it too. Originally this was supposed to be a one-shot, but now it's gonna be a multi-chapter fic~ Hope you enjoy.

* * *

Mike was late for school again, a half hour this time. He woke up late, and despite his speeding across town and running red lights, the teen still couldn't get to school on time. This was the fourth time this month that he's been late.

Doing a sloppy job of parking, Mike got out his dad's old Mazda. Waffle flapping around his mouth, and backpack swinging wildly by a strap; he jogged as fast as he could to the school entrance.

Half way through the parking lot, he heard the muffled sounds of music coming out of a car parked at the corner of the lot. "What the Pho?" Mike slows to a stride and detours towards the noisy car, as he gets closer he Mike starts to hear a strained voice singing along to the lyrics of the song "_all by myself, don't want to be all by myself_."

When Mike gets closer to the car, he sees that it belongs to the guidance counselor, Ms. Pillsbury. Mike could tell because she was the person singing along to the music, and crying as he realized distressingly.

Mike was frozen to the ground, 'dammit what should I do?' he asked himself over and over again. Fortunately for Mike the bell rang before he could do anything, unfortunately the noise jolted Emma from her own sorrows, to the awareness that an Asian boy was staring at her from outside her car.

There was an awkward moment between the two of them, neither moved until the sound of bustling students reached them. Mike was the first to regain movement of his body; he stumbled dazed and confused towards McKinley High. Emma pulled out of the parking lot and drove away, looking for some place private and sanitary enough to clean up in peace

*

Mike has been standing outside Emma's office for a minute now, unable to knock and announce his presence. His history teacher got a call in the middle of class and after a nerve wracking minute, told Mike to go down to Ms. Pillsbury's office. Mike had hoped that the whole incident would have just been brushed under the rug; he was sure that the awkwardness was going to kill him.

Finally gathering as much courage as he could, Mike raised his hand and knocked twice on the door, "Ms. Pillsbury? It's Mike Chang." Mike heard sounds of papers being moved, "please come in, the door's open." Mike braced himself for whatever fate he thought up for himself and entered the office.

Emma Pillsbury was sitting at her desk, back straight and hands clasped together on the desk. Her expression was neutral as Mike took a seat opposite her, something that made him extremely nervous. "Mike, I called you to my office because of what happened this morning."

"Uhm yeah, I'm really sorry Ms. Pillsbury I was late, and I thought you were in trouble . . ." Mike trailed off, not being able to look at his guidance councilor in the eyes. Even though Emma had her make up back on, Mike still couldn't get the image of her tearstained face out of his head. He hoped it was from the trauma of seeing her like that, instead of watching too much Japanese anime.

"Of course, you are a good kid Mike. I've seen your records, and it's just amazing how you've turned yourself around from middle school." Emma gave a small smile to Mike, hoping that praise would make him less nervous.

Mike let out a strained laugh, "thanks." He hated being reminded of his past. An uncomfortable silence fell on the room, Mike shifted in his seat and Emma twiddled her thumbs, neither wanted to continue the conversation.

"What you saw was a moment of weakness, it's not something that was meant to be seen. Unfortunately you did see and if you have lost faith in me- "

"I didn't! Trust me!" Mike's hands were in the air, eyes making contact with Emma's. "We all got our low points, and I'm just sorry I walked in when you were going through yours."

Emma smiled at the nervous boy, "Well you're forgiven Mike. The thing is, if anyone in the school were to find out what happened, then I would lose what sway I have with the kids."

"Oh oh, don't worry Ms. P your secret's safe with me. I won't tell, tweet, text, or facebook anyone."

"Well thank you Mike, you don't know how relieved it makes me to hear you say that." The two smiled at each other shyly; there was still tension in the room, but not as palpable as before. "Oh and I have to talk to you about your tardiness this morning."

"What?" Mike was taken off guard; he wasn't expecting this to come up.

Emma let out a laugh, "usually it's Mr. Figgins who handles these kinds of things, but I offered to do this time so I could get some time to talk to you."

"Oh well, uhm that makes sense, I guess." Mike mumbled as he slumped into his chair, he took solace in the fact that he was being talked to by the hot guidance councilor, instead of Figgins.

"You're a good kid Mike, good grades, football team, so why are you late so often?" Emma tried to soldier on and ignore whatever awkwardness was still between them.

"I'm sorry, it's just that my dad is away on business half the time, and I kinda let stuff pile up until the last minute. I was cleaning the house all night because my dad gets back this afternoon."

This peaked Emma's attention, to an OCD germaphobe, there weren't that many people whom she could talk to about cleaning all night. "Doesn't your mother help you at all?"

"My parents are divorced, she lives on the other side of town with my sister, uh I don't get along with her new husband, so I just stay at my dad's place when he's away." Mike said this softly, and without making eye contact.

Emma's maternal instinct kicked in when she heard Mike's situation. "Well if you need any cleaning advice, don't hesitate to ask. Not that many people know this, but I'm somewhat of a germaphobe."

"Really?" Mike was actually surprised to hear this, although it did explain why her office was so shiny.

"I hide it really well, I actually minored in theatre in university so I guess that's why it's so easy, you're actually the only person that knows." Actually most of the staff knew, they just ignored Emma's quirks.

"Wow, that's awesome. You know, the reason I was up so late was because I was trying to get coffee stains out of the carpet."

Emma perked up at the opportunity to enlighten a young mind with her experiences, and started to give out instructions at a spitfire rate. "Well there's many techniques out there, and they do work to some degree, but my favorite is to take a quarter teaspoon of dishwashing soap, preferably Dawn, and mix it with a quart of warm water. Then just work it into the stain until it's gone."

"Wow, jeeze, you weren't kidding. You could teach a course on this, or be on TV!" Mike said with a new found respect, and even a tinge of awe.

"Oh stop, you're making me blush." Emma had never been complimented on her dysfunctions before; it made her feel good, it made her feel normal.

"Well it's the truth, uhm if that's all . . ."

"Hold on there Mike, let's see if we can't address you procrastination on cleaning." Emma normally didn't talk to students about personal matters, but she took cleanliness seriously, and didn't want Mike to go down some dark and terrible path of filth and stains.

"Well I try to make sure things are tidy and all, but what with school, and homework, and football, and dance class, it just gets so hard. But don't worry, next time my dad has to leave on business is in the summer, so I promise I won't be late again."

"Well that's good to know, and I'm going to hold you up on that."

"Thanks, I won't let you down." Mike was almost sad that their conversation was coming to an end.

"So you take dance classes?"

This time it was Mike's turn to blush, he managed to mumble out "yeah, for a couple years now, Breaking, Pop and Locking, stuff like that."

"Really? Well maybe I could show you a couple moves sometime."

"You can dance?"

Emma laughed. "Well I _was_ a child of the eighties, have you heard about the Glee club? A place like that would be a great way to practice your talent."

Mike laughed at the idea, "Sorry Ms. P, but if joined Glee I'd get thrown in a dumpster or something."

Emma shivered at the thought, "Well it was worth a shot, now get out of here Mike, I've kept you too long."

Smiling, Mike got up and went towards the door, but not without one last look back. The two exchanged one last smile before Mike closed the door on his way out.

"Damn, I'm turning into Puck"

*

"I was thinking about joining Glee." Puck said this straight, which surprised his two companions, Mike and Matt. The trio was at their favorite hangout on a Friday night, in front of a 7-11, looking sad and waiting for something exciting to happen.

"What?" Matt looked at Puck like he was crazy; Mike would have done the same thing if he weren't reeling from the effects of a brain freeze.

"Think about it, Quinn joined Glee, that means the rest of the Cheerios are gonna join, it's just a matter of time."

"Gahhhhh" Mike's one hand was holding his head while the other was holding his slushee

"I don't man, just because the cheerios joined doesn't mean that we won't get ragged on." Matt took the slushee away from Mike before he could brain freeze himself again.

"Finn joined, and he hasn't gotten shit for it."

"You mean besides getting paintballed?" Matt countered.

Undeterred Puck continued, "Well after that, think about it Matt, with all the Cheerios joining, that's a dude to chick ration of like a lot."

"Dammit Puck, what happened to all the tutoring I gave you?" Mike finally entered the conversation.

"It went down the drain the same time I went down on your mom."

"Dude don't Joke about that." Puck's preference for older women, particularly mothers were well known to the football team.

"Yo I was only messing, you know I wouldn't mess with one of your moms. Brittany joined to, haven't you been trying to get up on the girl for weeks now?"

Mike sighed. "Yeah I have, but-"

"Now's your chance man, Glee sings and _dances, _if you join that means you get to grind on her all day." Mike got a far away look as he started to think about what it would be like to grind on Brittany.

At this point, Matt decided to step in before Puck swayed Mike completely to his side. "If you want to join Glee so much, why don't you just do it yourself."

"Because I got a rep man, if I joined by myself, then all the ladies would know what was up, but if you two joined up too-"

"This isn't because you want to get into Ms. Pillsbury's panties is it?"

"What?" Mike came out of his stupor when he heard Emma's name.

Matt looked over at Mike's confused face. "Yeah I heard from Santana that Ms. Pillsbury hangs around the Glee club sometimes."

"Bro, what do you take me for? Messing with a teacher is just gonna ruin my chances of getting laid with any girl at this school, cougars are needy, and I don't need one at school." This satisfied the two other guys, they trusted his knowledge about older women, and his drive to get laid with any girl he saw.

Somewhere in between his two friends arguing, Mike came around to the idea of joining Glee, he thought it was because of Puck's convincing arguments, but deep down he knew it was the thought of being around Emma that made him want to join Glee. "I think Puck's right, we should join Glee."

Matt looked scandalized. "You too Mike?"

"Well uhm uh . . . that Kurt kid is in Glee, and he got us that win, and Finn's the quarterback. Maybe joining Glee makes people good at football?" Mike was actually proud of himself for coming up with that argument.

Matt just stood there, under the light of the 7-11 sign, trying to think of reasons not to join.

"And Glee kids dance too, that's like the perfect place to show off our skills." Mike appealed to the part of his friend that loved to dance as much as he does. The pair actually met at a dance class, before football, before high school.

"Fine, alright ok lets join." Matt threw his hands up in the air as Mike and Puck gave each other high-fives.

"Can I have my slushee back?"

"No."


End file.
